Octopus Overlords

I wish someone would ask him who the second worst secretary of state was. Or best, for that matter. And why.

This guy is about as deep as the condensation on my drink.

The Truth(TM) is whatever is spewing out of his mouth at any given time. Facts are completely irrelevant.

Defiant wrote:

Yea, they will get right on it when they run out of hookers and blow.

Rip wrote:

El Guapo wrote:

malchior wrote:Jeez - Drumpf really is all over the place. Won't endorse Ryan or McCain for *their* elections.Way to unite the team!

Not only that, but he's given a shout-out to Ryan's primary opponent. Who I understand is an insane lunatic who has no chance, but who has said nice things about Trump, which is all the qualification that Trump needs.

Nehlen is going to win.

Wow, you sure can pick 'em.

House Speaker Paul Ryan crushed his insurgent challenger in their Tuesday primary, multiple outlets report. Ryan topped Wisconsin businessman Paul Nehlen by an 85% to 15% split.

El Guapo wrote:
But for what it's worth, I tend to find when dealing with crazy people on politics the socratic method works best. Just calmly - what would you do about X? I'm curious how you would address Y flaw? Generally having them reason through things tends to be relatively more productive than pointing out the reasons why they are wrong.

Except when the answer is always "Bomb 'em back to the Stone Age!"

Archinerd wrote:

em2nought wrote:

Archinerd wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:
He's had success in golf courses, although I didn't find enough details to know how successful. He also has a building in Chicago that is supposed to have gone well.

The building itself is okay, but ask any Chicagoan about the big dumb sign he put on it and you'll likely get a less favorable review.
I don't really know if it's been a financial success or not.

It's heartwarming to hear that Chicago has such tiny problems to be concerned with, everything else there must be all hunky-dory.

Are you really an ass or do you just play one on OO?

I'm for real man, an inconvenient truth where truth can't even be recognized.

With his primary challenge behind him, can Ryan find his spine?

Alefroth wrote:

Defiant wrote:Seems like the Secret Service may want to talk with Mr Trump.

"If she gets to pick her judges," Trump said, "nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is."

This election manages to get more and more crazy.

I'd be willing to bet he said it that way intentionally knowing it would be misconstrued so he could get more publicity and blame the media. I think it's back-firing. I don't think he's learned yet that he can't say anything and get away with now that the entire country is paying attention.

When Sharron Angle talked about "2nd Amendment remedies" back in 2010, as a cure for tyrannical government in general and Harry Reid in particular, everyone just shrugged her off as a nutcase too far right even for her own party. When a presidential candidate uses similar terms and tone, it's not as easy to ignore. Apparently Trump is brushing up on his Tea Party messaging.

Holman wrote: That's why I'm volunteering for voter registration and GOTV around Philly this year.

Thank you.

GreenGoo wrote: As far as unique/turning points in time go, this is a non-starter. Not only is the country NOT falling apart, it's not involved in pretty much anything as far as exciting (read: of a serious nature) geopolitical events goes. This is like the least important election ever, so both sides had to throw up their worst possible candidates to make things tense and drama worthy.

Whatever happens geopolitically, it's a hugely consequential election because of the Supreme Court.

Right now the balance is 4-4, but with Scalia's replacement it will immediately be 5-4 towards the ideology of the next President. The first four years will definitely see one more (Ginsburg) retirement and possibly two (Kennedy), and the four years after that will probably see another (Breyer).

I read GOTV as Game of the Year.

Kraken wrote:

El Guapo wrote:
But for what it's worth, I tend to find when dealing with crazy people on politics the socratic method works best. Just calmly - what would you do about X? I'm curious how you would address Y flaw? Generally having them reason through things tends to be relatively more productive than pointing out the reasons why they are wrong.

Except when the answer is always "Bomb 'em back to the Stone Age!"

I mean, ultimately there's only so much you can do. But it's still the best approach relative to the others.

hepcat wrote:I read GOTV as Game of the Year.

Holman will be going door-to-door talking to people about why they should be supporting Witcher 3.

Crap...that means I gotta wear pants today.

Holman wrote:

GreenGoo wrote: As far as unique/turning points in time go, this is a non-starter. Not only is the country NOT falling apart, it's not involved in pretty much anything as far as exciting (read: of a serious nature) geopolitical events goes. This is like the least important election ever, so both sides had to throw up their worst possible candidates to make things tense and drama worthy.

Whatever happens geopolitically, it's a hugely consequential election because of the Supreme Court.

Right now the balance is 4-4, but with Scalia's replacement it will immediately be 5-4 towards the ideology of the next President. The first four years will definitely see one more (Ginsburg) retirement and possibly two (Kennedy), and the four years after that will probably see another (Breyer).

All it takes is a couple of unexpected deaths and you could end up with one factionn rendered completely moot.

Holman wrote:

GreenGoo wrote: As far as unique/turning points in time go, this is a non-starter. Not only is the country NOT falling apart, it's not involved in pretty much anything as far as exciting (read: of a serious nature) geopolitical events goes. This is like the least important election ever, so both sides had to throw up their worst possible candidates to make things tense and drama worthy.

Whatever happens geopolitically, it's a hugely consequential election because of the Supreme Court.

Fair enough, and I absolutely didn't think of the nomination(s) when I wrote the above. Especially since Ginsberg has suggested she'll be retiring during the next term or 2.

That said, while incredibly important for the direction of the country for years to come, it's not particularly dramatic or exciting. Like an important piece of legislation, the ramifications are huge, but the details are pretty boring.

In any case, you're right, it's a critical moment for SCOTUS and that makes it a critical moment for the country.

Default wrote: All it takes is a couple of unexpected deaths and you could end up with one factionn rendered completely moot.

The new judges would still need to pass the nomination process, and if the incumbent gets too greedy, good luck getting anyone through. There's a reason Scalia hasn't been replaced yet.

In the current case, "gets too greedy" seems to mean "nominating anyone."

GreenGoo wrote:

Default wrote: All it takes is a couple of unexpected deaths and you could end up with one factionn rendered completely moot.

The new judges would still need to pass the nomination process, and if the incumbent gets too greedy, good luck getting anyone through. There's a reason Scalia hasn't been replaced yet.

Well, sure, and the reason is that the GOP controls the Senate.

The odds are that a Clinton win will be accompanied by Dems taking the Senate. If Trump wins, the Senate will probably stay Republican. That's why this election will be decisive for the Court.

The House is not involved in confirming justices.

Assuming the next president doesn't want a riot, they are going to try for a balance, I would assume. A balance is good for the country as well.

Has there ever been a time where SCOTUS was heavily weighted to one side? What happened?

GreenGoo wrote:Assuming the next president doesn't want a riot, they are going to try for a balance, I would assume.

That's a dubious assumption. If the senate is of the same party, they're going to nominate someone young-ish and reliably liberal / conservative.

GreenGoo wrote:Has there ever been a time where SCOTUS was heavily weighted to one side? What happened?

Yes, although that depends on what you view as the 'sides'. Pre-New Deal the court was a pretty right-wing activist court (hence you got decisions doing things like striking down minimum wage laws as unconstitutional). Then the Supreme Court wound up being solidly liberal out of the New Deal era, so you got a lot of decisions along the lines of the civil rights decisions, Roe v. Wade, wildly pro-enforcement antitrust decisions, etc. Then Ford / Reagan / Bush pushed the court solidly to the right, so you got things like the steady erosion of Roe v. Wade.

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.

Recent PPP poll of North Carolina voters:

69% of Trump voters think that if Hillary Clinton wins the election it will be because it was rigged, to only 16% who think it would be because she got more vote than Trump. More specifically 40% of Trump voters think that ACORN (which hasn't existed in years) will steal the election for Clinton.

(ACORN folded and closed its doors under right-wing pressure in 2010.)

48% of Trump voters think that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton deserve the blame for Humayun Khan's death to 16% who absolve them and 36% who aren't sure one way or the other.

(Khan was killed in Iraq in 2004.)

Even though Trump ended up admitting it didn't exist 47% of his voters say they saw the video of Iran collecting 400 million dollars from the United States to only 46% who say they didn't see the video.

Holman wrote:

Even though Trump ended up admitting it didn't exist 47% of his voters say they saw the video of Iran collecting 400 million dollars from the United States to only 46% who say they didn't see the video.

In their defense, the original Italian Job is a realistic looking movie.

So....

16% of Trump voters (generously) believe that if Clinton is elected it will be because she got more votes
69% of Trump voters say it would be because the election is rigged.

So....what's the theory of the final 15%? Trump will have received more votes but will let Clinton become president because he's the classiest, most generous candidate ever? A temporal space-time rift opens up causing the candidates to body-swap before election day?

But who do they think signed Harambe's kill order?

Holman wrote:

GreenGoo wrote: As far as unique/turning points in time go, this is a non-starter. Not only is the country NOT falling apart, it's not involved in pretty much anything as far as exciting (read: of a serious nature) geopolitical events goes. This is like the least important election ever, so both sides had to throw up their worst possible candidates to make things tense and drama worthy.

Whatever happens geopolitically, it's a hugely consequential election because of the Supreme Court.

Right now the balance is 4-4, but with Scalia's replacement it will immediately be 5-4 towards the ideology of the next President. The first four years will definitely see one more (Ginsburg) retirement and possibly two (Kennedy), and the four years after that will probably see another (Breyer).

It's unusual for world affairs to overshadow domestic policy in a presidential election, but that's what we're facing in '16. Even Americans who don't follow foreign news can sense that the world is changing rapidly, and not for the better. The right is focused on terrorism, immigration and (at least ostensibly) globalization. The left is worried about stirrings of fascism, massive population displacements, environmental deterioration, and the unraveling of the liberal-democratic world order (as exemplified by Brexit). The wars in Aghanistan and Iraq grind on with no end in sight and Syria will likely draw us in after Obama is gone.

All of these things are worth worrying about. That's not to say that everything's hunky-dory on the home front -- far from it -- but foreign threats feel more ominous.

Wait, what? The world is rapidly changing for the worse (not for the better)?

The global economy hasn't fully recovered from 2008, but it's getting there. If anything it's improving.

Why do you think the world is changing for the worse? You're in few global conflicts than ever. Your economy is recovering. The middle east is the middle east. Russia took Crimea but...that's about on par for things in general.

Is it the ISIS terrorism? Is that all it takes for the world to become a shittier place? A relatively small group of people with relatively little power and mass murders focused mostly in 2 or 3 countries and the world is now in decline?

Kraken, I know you put a fair bit of thought into your comments, so I assume I'm just not seeing what you're seeing. Today seems like a pretty boring moment in history, as far as history goes.

Holman wrote:

GreenGoo wrote: As far as unique/turning points in time go, this is a non-starter. Not only is the country NOT falling apart, it's not involved in pretty much anything as far as exciting (read: of a serious nature) geopolitical events goes. This is like the least important election ever, so both sides had to throw up their worst possible candidates to make things tense and drama worthy.

Whatever happens geopolitically, it's a hugely consequential election because of the Supreme Court.

Right now the balance is 4-4, but with Scalia's replacement it will immediately be 5-4 towards the ideology of the next President. The first four years will definitely see one more (Ginsburg) retirement and possibly two (Kennedy), and the four years after that will probably see another (Breyer).

I'd also add that Trump and Clinton offer vastly different visions for the country - far more than pairs of candidates in any other election in the last couple of decades, IMO. And that will have consequences.

GreenGoo wrote:

Default wrote: All it takes is a couple of unexpected deaths and you could end up with one factionn rendered completely moot.

The new judges would still need to pass the nomination process, and if the incumbent gets too greedy, good luck getting anyone through. There's a reason Scalia hasn't been replaced yet.

Yes, the nomination process has been delayed because the president was too greedy by picking a moderate for the bench. /sarcasm

Isgrimnur wrote:But who do they think signed Harambe's kill order?

Had to be the Death Panels, right?

GreenGoo wrote:Assuming the next president doesn't want a riot, they are going to try for a balance, I would assume. A balance is good for the country as well.

Has there ever been a time where SCOTUS was heavily weighted to one side? What happened?

In ~2010, it was apparently the most extreme it had been in the past 80 years.




link

PLW wrote:

Holman wrote: That's why I'm volunteering for voter registration and GOTV around Philly this year.

Thank you.

Ditto.

Just so people know, for those not in swing states you can volunteer to phone bank from your own home.

Defiant wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:

Default wrote: All it takes is a couple of unexpected deaths and you could end up with one factionn rendered completely moot.

The new judges would still need to pass the nomination process, and if the incumbent gets too greedy, good luck getting anyone through. There's a reason Scalia hasn't been replaced yet.

Yes, the nomination process has been delayed because the president was too greedy by picking a moderate for the bench. /sarcasm

Ah, I see how that reads. What I meant was, not replacing Scalia is an example of why it's not automatically a done deal that the next president can cram SCOTUS full of idealogues.

Thanks for the SCOTUS graph. That's cool.

As utterly inexcusable as the 2nd amendment shit is, it's not like veiled suggestions to assassinate your opponent haven't happened before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw98fouyfBg

Just as inexcusable then as it is now from someone coming from a space of psychological influence.

GreenGoo wrote:
Why do you think the world is changing for the worse?

ISIS is just a symptom. Millions of refugees swamping Europe, the resulting rise of neo-fascist parties, the potential dissolution of the EU due to populism and nativism, Russian adventuring, Turkey's turn to dictatorship -- these related trends threaten the liberal-democratic world order that has pertained since the Cold War. Trump is only the American face of all of this and defeating him here will not stop Europe's rise of the right (or our own, really). I won't invoke the Middle East since that's a perpetual crisis, except to remind you that all of these events were set in motion by the invasion of Iraq and point out that Clinton and Trump are both itching to intervene in Syria. As the Scarecrow said, "I think it'll get darker before it gets lighter."

The geopolitical situation isn't particularly dire today, but the trends worry me.

We were on the verge of a nuclear war a little over 50 years ago. We were involved in two wars that spanned continents within the last 100 years. It always seems like the worst of times to those in the midst of history, but it quite often is just more of the same.

LordMortis wrote:As utterly inexcusable as the 2nd amendment shit is, it's not like veiled suggestions to assassinate your opponent haven't happened before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw98fouyfBg

Just as inexcusable then as it is now from someone coming from a space of psychological influence.

I'm not even remotely making excuses for her, but I see a pretty big gap between "I'm sticking around in case he gets shot" versus "if she's elected only people with guns will be able to stop her"

Not that I am, but you can read Hillary's statement as "bad things happen, I'm sticking around in case the worst happens". You can't read Trump's statement as anything except "once Hillary is elected you can't stop her, except for the gun people, maybe, I don't know".

For the record I don't see Trump's statement as solely a call for assassination, it could easily be interpreted as people with guns should overthrow the government. Whether Trump meant "kill her" or he meant "destroy democracy in the US through violence" is only an important distinction to the target of the assassination. As far as these ideas coming out of the mouth of a presidential nominee, both are fucking awful.

Thanks for your answer Kraken. I guess I don't see the time from WWII to today in the same light as you, which is probably why I don't feel there are big changes happening today.

Of course you lived through more of it than I have, so it might be me missing the big picture.

Defiant wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:

Default wrote: All it takes is a couple of unexpected deaths and you could end up with one factionn rendered completely moot.

The new judges would still need to pass the nomination process, and if the incumbent gets too greedy, good luck getting anyone through. There's a reason Scalia hasn't been replaced yet.

Yes, the nomination process has been delayed because the president was too greedy by picking a moderate for the bench. /sarcasm

At this point the Republicans would be smart to confirm Garland, because Clinton could certainly choose someone they would like a whole lot less.